Crazy in Love
by AfterForev3R
Summary: Marik is admitted to a Psychiatric Institution on the grounds of his unusual conversations with his Yami self.He's not certain he's willing to stay when he comes across his room's Psychiatrist,Bakura.All is not as it seems with Bakura either,and between them,there may be four presences amid the white walls that only get caught up in the complicated relationship that develops.
1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1- The White Room

_Dear Aunt Helpful_

_I am 14 and gay. My dad hates me already. What do I do?_

_-M_

Scoffing quietly, Marik reminded himself of all the good that letter did him. He'd sent it in to the magazine in the hopes of a supportive response, when he was just 14 years old. Six years later and he found himself in a mental institution. His dad told him he was crazy. Hallucinating, talking-to-himself, fed-up-with-life crazy.

"I am just so sick of living here!" Marik had told them all, to his own demise. "It's nothing to do with what's in my head."

"Son," And his father had choked on the word like he regretted it, "You're bored of women. That's why you think you like men."

"I don't _think_ I like men, I…"

"You're dumb, so you think you can't past tests." His father interrupted him.

"I'm not…"

"Which is why you're too lazy to study for them. Which is why you should be studying harder!"

"Dad!" Marik had insisted, adamant. "I'm not trying to do any of this…"

"Oh of course." His dad had told him, suddenly planting his head face down into his hands as though shamed. "It's the voices in your head, right son? My only son..."

"One voice. Singular." Marik attempted saying, as though that made it any better for him. "It's like this other Marik, an, an evil Marik…"

"Stop it!" His sister Ishizu burst out spontaneously, as though intent to save them from some great evil Marik had become. "You'll break mother's heart!" But through all the theatrics, their mother had already run from the room sobbing ages ago.

Marik raised his eyebrows in surprise, not certain it was anything to get upset over. "Why? How is this any different from how I've acted all my life?"

"It's gotten worse," His father told him, in a tone that laid a red carpet down for his own confession. "And…Marik. We've come up with a solution."

"Oh so I'm a problem now, am I? Good, that's real sweet of you all. So hey, how're we gonna fix me?" His sarcastic remarks fell on deaf ears. He could never have foreseen what was to come.

He could never have imagined himself, a vast stretch of miles from home, with his own back pack stuffed to capacity with the little bits of home he could bring along tethered to his back. It dug into his shoulders, scratching his bronze skin a little, making him wonder where his mother was to complain to. Or his cell phone to call her and complain to with, or Ishizu to complain to in the meanwhile.

God he missed home.

It must have showed on his disappointed face as he slipped into the Psychiatric Ward's main office, because the receptionist took pity on him. She bustled over with wide, sympathetic eyes. "Oh dear, can I help you?"

Then he just realized she was checking out his mid rib from closer range. He felt a little exposed when he realized everyone was looking at him, fascinated by his Egyptianess. This place was clearly a little further from home than he would have liked to imagine.

"I'm good. Just…checking in to room 505."

"You came alone?" she asked disbelievingly, with even more sympathy swimming her eyes. "Oh dear…"

"Yeah." Marik admitted, a little confused. "Anyway, if you could just, point it out to me…"

"Oh sure. But you need to be scanned first."

"Scanned what now?"

"Ya know. Tested for drugs and narcotics and the what have you. Also, gotten your health inspection."

"I need a…health inspection?" Marik asked uncertainly, berating his parents for setting him up here.

"Yep. Everywhere. You'll have to be naked. Come to think of it, I'll come with you!" She announced doltishly.

Marik shivered at the thought, on the verge of plunging out the doors again. There was still time, he could still make it. They didn't even have his name to cross reference with the psycho that'd escaped their ward. Although one check up call from his dad with the description of tanned, scantily dressed and Egyptian and, they'd probably have his name soon enough.

"It will only take a minute." The over eager receptionist assured him, nudging him onwards in a combination of care and a strange personal mission.

Marik was about to protest when he was overwhelmed by another's person's thought patterns. Yami Marik had arrived in voice alone up in his thoughts again.

'_Hey Marik!'_

"The reason I'm here_…" _Marik returned the greeting at a hiss, under his breath as the receptionist cocked her head doubtfully, as though hesitant to believe he was talking to himself.

'_Yeah well now it's just you and me here, right Marik? Just us. Just you and me in the silence…'_

That thought was unbearable. Marik was about to scream at his dark side, when he realized with pained acknowledging, that everybody in the room was still staring at him. And they couldn't hear his dark side's end of the discussion.

"This way now…" The receptionist picked up where they'd left off, not deterred in the slightest.

Marik felt pushed and receded instantly. He wanted to run from here. The thought of home spun in his mind. His own back pack weighed him down like a guilty conscience. Maybe he shouldn't have pled crazy. Maybe he should have just appeased his parents and dated a girl and cheated on tests and pretended the voice up in his head was the illusion they told him it was.

He shuddered involuntarily at the most significant of those notions. Dated a girl. He'd had about enough of girls; boys were a different matter. There was something refreshingly honest about a boy; as though he didn't want to deceive you with hidden meanings and saying one thing while he did another. In all truthfulness, he could understand a boy better. He was one. How much easier it had to be seeing eye to eye. They had to be easier to confront with that in mind.

"Oh," The receptionist broke his spiraling thoughts, throwing her head up cheerfully to see across his shoulder. "There he is. That's the Cadet Psychiatrist of your ward, over there."

Marik nodded bleakly, revolving to see where she'd pointed at.

"That's him over there, his name's Bakura dear."

It was something about his hair. No, his eyes. No, definitely his hair. As he came sweeping up out of nowhere, a young boy in white that made the clinical trench coat appear angelic, his blue eyes met up with Marik's helpless stare. They arrested him there, without any will to escape him. It didn't even seem possible that anything so striking could have a place amid the plain, surgery green walls of the clinic halls.

The boy smiled enchantingly at the dumb founded stare he'd received. "Marik Ishtar?" He presumed.

Marik bobbed his head once quickly at that, swallowing back his torrent of questions.

Bakura had a clip board in one hand, and he approached with it extended. "Are you signing yourself in?"

Marik couldn't locate English words in time, so he snatched up the clip board feeling impolite at his own silence.

A voice he hadn't expected woke inside of him just as his hand brushed past his Cadet psychiatrist's on grabbing the board. The voice he ironically should have been the most prepared for by now.

'_Hey, uh, you do realize your heart beat is like a thousand times…'_

"Shut up." Marik muttered to his dark side while he dashed his signature down on the page.

"Excuse me?" Bakura asked sweetly, glancing up from his quick discussion with the receptionist to listen.

"Oh, uh, it's…" Marik started, pressured crazily.

'_This is like when you start a test you haven't studied for. Maybe worse…'_

"Ah-hm. Nothing." Marik tried throat clearing, mostly to drown the thoughts in his head that weren't his own out.

As though full of understanding, Bakura nodded politely. "Alright then. Would you like to follow me to the nurse's office?"  
"Yeah I would actually." Marik stated recklessly, despite his earlier reservations.

Bakura obliged with a brief smile and took the lead down the quiet green halls.

'_Boy if this guy isn't a stiff.'_

Marik ignored himself.

It didn't take them long to reach the check up room, where Bakura pulled up and prompted Marik inside. "Go right in. The nurse will be with you."

"Will you?" Marik asked, almost childishly.

Bakura laughed softly at that, which made him even harder to pull away from. He shook his head gently, as one in custody of psychos might become accustomed to. "No, not inside Marik. But I'll be with you after to take you to your ward."

Oh great, like the lollipop at the end of the injection. Marik nodded at the brief respite in that as he forced himself through the nurse's doors alone.

Another fangirl met him on the other side. "Oh! I mean…Oh, hi! You must be…"

"Marik Ishtar." He provided her with, scared of her though he couldn't isolate why.

"Room 505. Oh, well it's just _wonderful _to have you here!" Her getting over-excited was psyching his nerves up. Marik swallowed back the urge to call Bakura in.

"Well if you'd just sit down here," The nurse ordered him, setting him down at her table. "I'll ask you a few personal questions…"

"Um…"

"About your health."

"Oh," Marik relaxed slightly.

"Right. So, um, let's start at the top…" She ran him through a cascading list of questions that took them past the ups and downs of his general state of life and living. When she was done, she patted the operating table with one hand to imply he sit on it.

He was surprised at the motion. "But, aren't we..?"

"Body inspection." She affirmed for him kindly, as her smiling eyes carried down to his shirt. "Gonna have to take 'em off, sweetheart."

"Hmm." Marik contemplated that, recalling words like these from no further reliable source other than that previous fangirl. "Hang on a sec. Bakura!"

"Marik?" Came a pleasant voice that had detected his startling outcry.

"I'm not sure if I need to go through with this. She wants me to strip."

"That's part of the process. Keep going, you're doing great."

"I'm…not sure I'm comfortable with that." Marik called back out to him, surprising himself at how easy it was to find words when the conversation was being held behind the shield of a door. "How badly do I have to?"

"Dear, it's only policy." The nurse confirmed for him, petting his disheveled hair in fondness of his innocence. "Don't you worry about a thing. It's completely professional."

"Why can't he do it?" Marik spat out worriedly at her touch, immediately regretting it. Instantly hoping against the odds that Bakura wasn't still listening in on them.

The nurse pulled back ever so slightly, amused and perplexed all at once. Then she brushed her hair behind her ear, laughingly telling him, "Bakura? Bakura is not qualified, dear. He would just lose his job if he tried that sort of thing."

"Why does everyone here call me dear?" Marik asked in self pity, still somewhat relieved Bakura hadn't heard his last whimpering session.

"Because you are a dear," she tried to cover for herself with, before confessing, "And it's very Psychiatric Facility for us to do so."

"Really?" He asked her tiredly, not sure how long he could keep the conversation going to prolong the final event.

"For sure. Now take your shirt off."

"Why do they call us that again?"

"It's a happy word. We need to use happy words. Shirt, please."

"Oh. So what else is a happy word?"

"Dear…"

"Yeah I know that one," Marik strung her along enjoyably, "But…do you know any other happy words?"

"Well now dear, I'm not sure, but if you don't take your shirt off for me this instant…you're going to hear some very unhappy words."

Adhering to the threat, Marik whisked his shirt off indignantly. "Hmph."

"Alright, let's put an ear piece on here." She gave him the full 911. He was approved of shortly and bid his shirt again in only moments.

"Well, that was painless enough." She declared.

"For you maybe." And Marik recovered his dignity along with his shirt again.

"Pants next."

"I was afraid of that." Marik said with dread. Her incessancy won over his defiance long before the battle had even started.

"Thank you dear."

"Don't mention it."

Marik stumbled out of her doors defeated, having forgotten Bakura was even there waiting for him. His half open eyes met the blue eyed, white haired angel modestly. "So, are the people declared crazy after they're poked with sticks in there, or, even before that?"

Bakura giggled warmly at that, helping him take the next few steps down the halls dressed in his newly donned psychiatric ward-white robe. "But aren't you more comfortable now?"

"Emotionally, no." Marik admitted despite the comfort of his new robe. "And the outfit just makes me feel psychopathic."

"You're not psychopathic." Bakura assured him in all politeness, as they passed by a man drinking milk through his nose. Bakura hesitated in nervous watch of him as they came up closer, where the man instantly resigned to stopping the defiant gig and proceeded the act of drinking through the funnel that was his mouth. Bakura smiled approvingly at him and then lead on again.

"Sure I'm not." Marik cooed like a child.

The inside of his room was white and calming. Everything was devoid of color; drab and meaningless. The walls of the room were empty and white. The bed sheets of his room were just as colorless. The floors and the corner chair were lacking too.

Against the pale interior, Bakura's ashen skin and startling white roguish mess of hair were lost without contrast. It was enough to convince any man the world was clean and clear and simple.

"I want to go home." Marik told Bakura unguardedly. "I hate it here."

"Now Marik," And Bakura positioned himself as a barrier between the door and his patient's frantic eyes. "I understand you're still new to this place, and it may all come as surprising. But I'm with you through this, and I'm sure you'll settle in quite nicely."

"Yeah. And when that day comes, I'm sure as hell to be crazy."

Bakura's fallen expression pled with him to comply with the process. Marik just saw a world without color.

"Look, I've had enough." Marik told him outright, certain he could push the slimmer boy out of the door frame and his path need be. "Just get out of my way."

"Marik," Bakura said his name like he'd known him for a long time. "This isn't a prison house. This is somewhere you've chosen to be, because you know you're not crazy."

"What?"

"This isn't a way to admit to yourself you've lost it. This is just a way of proving that you're not crazy."

"Huh?"

"It's all confusing, I know." And Bakura touched his face lightly. "But in the end, you'll walk out of here with no one stopping you. You'll walk out knowing you were everything you thought you were when you first came in here and just couldn't reach the words to tell us."

"I…"

"And I'm here." Bakura promised him, the selling point. Marik didn't have to be crazy to know that this was all an obvious trap he was letting himself fall into. Bakura's eyes were so alluring that they threw all the color the room needed across the spotless walls. "I'm here with you Marik. And I would really like to get to know you before you take off again. Would you stay here to get to know me, Marik?"

Probably, a bad idea. No, definitely, a bad idea.

"Okay."

He was granted solitude a few seconds after complying, at which point he tossed his heavily weighted bag down onto the floorboards with nothing but the miles he'd travelled in mind. It was as though he'd been trapped in hell by an angel.

His thoughts warped by feelings he'd never felt before, Marik sat up in the silence with nothing other than the promise of Bakura's return resonating across his consciousness. He was less than pleased to realize he had just received his first dose of psychology.

'Will you stay with me, Marik?' Which in fact meant, 'Will you stay here, miles from home, for a stranger who thinks you're not much more than crazy?'

There was no denying how much he missed the most annoying aspects of his most annoying family now, right down to his dolt of a sister and his father's unfounded pet snake that had bitten him once when he'd least deserved it. It had struck out at him back when he was little, and uncomplicated, and unprepared for the harsh realities that were to come. Come to think of it, the same unpreparedness he experienced alone in the room that day.

The small, but endless, white room that had somehow become his.

He wasn't even sure what they could do to fix a patient who wasn't hallucinating or crazy. Whose demons were real.

'_Marik? What're we still doing here? Let's break a window or something, come on.'_

As tempting as his evil self was, Marik denied it that pleasure. Of telling him what to do.

After landing them both in an insanity ward, it was the least he could do out of vengeance to ignore the spirit further. It was a taxing punishment to uphold.

'_Marik? Hey, Marik. Hey Marik. Marik, it's me, Marik.'_

Correction.

The small, but endless, white room that had somehow become…theirs.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two-All Kinds of Crazy

With the artificial lighting falling alluringly across his skin, Bakura felt urged to pause momentarily in front of the mirror. A darker voice he recognized as in his head but not his own took the floor.

'Pretty aren't you?'

Bakura withdrew a breath as it came for him. In the same moment, he tried to ignore it entirely.

'I'm not still taking you by surprise am I?'

He continued ignoring it, for whatever minor respite it brought to him. But it didn't feel obliged to go away.

'Shame. I'm confusing you. Here, why don't you let me take lead for once…'

Bakura proceeded to dismiss it further, gathering his books from the desk. Volumes upon volumes of Psychology, a subject he had decidedly taken to help other people. Even if he wound up trying to help himself more often than anyone. The voice in his head wasn't real. He had volume upon volume to tell him that.

'I saw something today. Something we both noticed…'

Bakura whipped his bag onto his shoulder, flicking a ribbon of white hair back as he began towards the door.

'You don't have to respond to me, Bakura. You and I both know what I mean to you without words …'

Bakura's heart lurched, catching his hand just above the door handle. There was nothing he wanted to share with him, and yet, he couldn't shake the feeling that there was. He could feel himself biting words of protest back, in fear of encouraging it, as it continued its monologue.

'Anyway. That kid, the new one. Anything seem…familiar about him?' A brief pause. 'I know him from somewhere. There's something about his aura…'

"We don't know him." Bakura found his voice at last, thoughts flicking to Marik. "You're imagining things."

'Well now, what's this? Jealousy I detect?' The voice in his head laughed darkly. 'Of course you're still my favorite. And you've already admitted I'm yours…'

"Stop it."

'Stop what? I can hardly do much of anything inside your head…'

"Just stop talking."

'Let me out, Bakura.' There was a smile in his voice. 'I'll take you where you want to go…'

Bakura dropped his bag down, hesitant to go outside while he was shaking like this. Wary of outside eyes that would never have his problem. "You're never getting control again."

'You don't know that.'

"I know what you did to those people…"

'What _we_ did, actually. And in all honesty, that's not my real ambition when I get a chance at your body Bakura…'

"Stop that."

It sounded amused again. 'Stop what? Bakura, tell me you love me…'

Bakura bit his lip down, temporizing.

'Like you did before.' It goaded onwards. 'When you were alone…'

It was like carrying an ex-lover around in your pocket. It had been a childish decision to love a delusion as he had back then, but when he'd been so outcast from the world anyway, it had seemed viable. A mistake that had never let him go. "I don't love you anymore. You're not even real."

'Haha! What was that last argument?'

"You don't exist…"

'The best part about when you're wrong Bakura, is that I get to show you how wrong you are…'

Bakura stepped backwards into the wall as a pain surged through his head, throbbing like a new heart beat. It raced up into his chest and stole his air for a moment, and when he next managed to breathe it wasn't him on the outside. It was that voice; his body had changed hands. It was surreal to be trapped in his own mind, seeing the world through the will of another.

'Yami!' He addressed it by the name it had proffered him once, when he'd loved it enough to ask for one.

Yami Bakura smiled curiously to hear the voice of Ryou Bakura, now the only figment of illusion if there ever was one, stuck on the other side. He tossed his hair backwards out of habit as he spoke. "What's that you were saying?"

'Yami! Get me out of here!'

"Get yourself out." Yami taunted sweetly, wandering over to the door handle with one intention. "You're in control here, aren't you?"

'Yami!' It was suffocating, and he wasn't even sure he needed air; he was only a conscious. 'Where are you going to go?'

"Well let's see now…Marik, was it?"

'Why? You don't know him!'

"Now you don't know that, Bakura." He said as he led them outside from the office, towards the patient dorms with casual ease. "There are a lot of things you don't know."

The dark halls veiled his passing, the late hours of the night having provided nothing but a faint off glow from the watchful moon.

When Yami Bakura arrived at Marik's door, there wasn't anything his other half, trapped in his thoughts, could do but witness it happen.

"Hmm, I can feel him from here." Yami said.

'What?' Bakura responded with sharply.

"His aura, I mean. Anyway, you were right about one thing. I don't know this spirit."

'You don't…what?' Bakura stumbled on the statement incomprehensively. He wasn't given the chance to recover himself in time to.

"So, I don't know him," Yami Bakura reckoned breezily, smiling at Bakura's alarm as he reached for Marik's bedroom door handle. "Let's fix that…"

Bakura was looking sideways at him, with his hair ruffled fluffily and his bright eyes pleading for affection. Marik was hopping down onto the floor beside him when a disengaging crash suddenly shattered his dream.

He threw his head up from his spotless white, ward room pillow in mid-awakening as the blurry image of the intruder slipped through the door. He cast his unfocused gaze around in disorientation, initially having been startled by the bang of his own door to the point that he hadn't realized his first dream of Bakura…had just been rudely interrupted.

It was only the sight of him, Bakura, standing there in his doorway ,that could have made up for that offence.

"B-kura?" Marik mumbled curiously in his sleepiest voice. Having easily drifted to sleep here on his first night, he surprised even himself at times with how adaptable he could be.

Bakura's eyes fetched his out from the darkness, and something unusual stirred inside them as he spoke. Even his voice sounded oddly…unlike him. "You remembered."

_How could I forget?_ Marik thought, the color rising in his face as he shamefully recalled his most recent dream. Not that saying anything like that would be his best foot forward. "Is…everything okay?"

Bakura smiled aberrantly, with something ambiguous about his amused eyes. He seemed to be laughing inwardly about a joke Marik was unaware of as he stepped forwards in deliberate advancement.

Marik contained himself enough to stop himself from thinking this was anything it wasn't. Since Bakura couldn't possibly be approaching his bed with smiling willingness, unless he had never been woken and this was in fact an extension of his fantasize-wait. Marik's denial engulfed the word and quickly filed in- dreaming.

Bakura looked on the verge of speech, halfway across the short distance to Marik, when suddenly he was not smiling. Something resembling pain touched his eyes and he flinched them closed, biting his own lip in a bizarre turn of events from one extreme to another.

"Bakura?" Marik floundered worriedly, concerned about the direction this dream was taking them. When Bakura threw his eyes up at Marik, they were not those of the kind unassuming Cadet Psychiatrist he'd been greeted by upon arriving here. They were consumed by unpredictable rage that swept them from a hazy, trusting hazel to a sudden vengeful darkness.

Marik felt his body shudder involuntarily, catching himself on his own sheets as Bakura lurched backwards a step with a frustrated cry, smashing into the door he'd arrived through. His heart leapt for reasons other than the fact that Bakura was in his presence.

"Bakura?" He hazarded again, more loudly out of slight fear.

When Bakura stopped moving, he was breathing a little too roughly. His hair cascaded down his back again as he drew his head back up with effort. The eyes he stared with were sweet again. "Mar-ik…"

The name was broken by his soft attempts at catching breath, which he carried with him up until the door where he finally managed, "I'm…sorry. Shouldn't have woken you. Try to get- " His sentence finished abruptly, and the door swung shut on his rushed exit.

Marik was left wide eyed and hopelessly confused, wondering where Bakura had gotten to in such a hurry.

Weird…How many dreams had he woken up from just then?

He was staring directly at him.

Marik had glanced behind himself in all possible directions and arrived at the fitting conclusion that his Cadet Psychiatrist was staring at no other person in the room but him. It led him to wonder a little hopefully about the reality of the encounter he was unsure had occurred the night prior. The surrounding clink of cutlery, as the other psychos of this Institution milled about the tables, failed to disrupt the silent air that hung like a mist between Bakura and himself. Marik twisted his spoon around in his bowl but couldn't fathom a bite of it through the tension.

Bakura hadn't relented staring with certainty at him since he'd walked into the cafeteria hall. It was near the very end of a much unappreciated breakfast he'd let get cold before wolfing down that Marik was proffered anything other than unreadable eyes. A playful smile filled Bakura's face and Marik felt his chest implode. He smiled back, with quick thoughtlessness, as the gesture of friendship extended itself.

There had been something lustful about the way Bakura smiled at him. Although in the strangest of senses, it hadn't felt like Bakura smiling up at all.

"Hey," An incessant voice disrupted his reverie. One of the emo-fringed psycho inmates had beckoned him from the chair opposite his. "Checking out the Cadet?"

Marik flushed at the unexpected accusation, quickly building a fortress out of hastily concocted bluffs. "Well…no. I mean, I just met him. I'm not passing glances and stuff, I'm not even here for that. I'm just looking at the wall…" when nothing felt like a decent cover up, he added in last resort, "You know, cos I'm psycho." Anything was better than being the perverted new guy.

The emo-fringe bounced slightly as its wearer nodded. "No, you were checking out the Cadet."

"Why would I do that?"

"Cos like, the Cadet's like having sex with your eyes. I stare at him, that's what I would do."

Marik swallowed at the two forbidden words finding one sentence in the guy's mouth. He stuttered, "You were…checking out the Cadet?"

"Yeah." He shrugged. "Life's boring this side of the world. I used to check out the receptionist, but then he quit and they brought in this like over helping female. Girls scare me, man. I was like abandoned and stuff. You know what that feels like?"

"Not…really, no…"And then a quick picture of his family flashed up before his eyes and he frowningly corrected himself, "Well actually, yes. But that's not why I'm gay."

"You're gay huh?"

There was something overly curious about those words, to which Marik quipped, "Gay, not desperate. Tell me again…why do you stare at Bakura?"

The psycho laughed, an unstable sound that people with a choice would have walked away from. "Yeah, man. You like the Cadet. Like I haven't seen like your type of liking the Cadet since like, what's that guy."

"What's that guy?" Marik pursued the point of the statement, despite its incoherent structuring.

The psycho shrugged. "Jackal." He told him simply. "Jack's the guy who told us if we bite from his apple, he's gonna break our jaws for us."

Marik unraveled that in time to process the threat it was meant to be taken as. "Aha…" He prickled at the prospect of rivalry. "And um, how high does Jack stand?"

"You mean…is he like revered?"

"I mean…is he like bigger than me?"

The psycho laughed out a little too loudly, shattering Marik's senses, but not pushing him far enough to leave the conversation unfinished. His eyes lit up like a blaze had caught them. "Oh, Jackal's gonna kill you..."

Marik raised an eyebrow, not diverted by the gradual getting up the individuals around him were doing in preparation to leave the food hall. "What's that mean?"

"Jackal," And the psycho erupted in manic laughter that dissolved into the noisy movement of the crowd. "He'll love it if you fight for Cadet. He like loves fighting for Cadet, he always wins. Beat me man."

Unguardedly, Marik fixed his gaze to Bakura up ahead. With stinging conviction, he found his answer as Bakura's hazel eyes seemed to fade into their general softness again. There were things he didn't know about Bakura of which he was eager to learn, come the psycho apocalypse. "Well whatever, I hope he lets _Cadet_ decide for us."

From amongst the flowing crowd, Bakura perked his head up and cast Marik a different smile, unlike the first. This one was caring and apologetic, not flirtatious. Something in his gaze was careful as it slipped to the ground and fell away to the masses.

Marik held the stare together long after Bakura had broken it from him.

Seated amid the disruptive therapy circle, Marik really did feel psycho. Was he one of these people?

Every chair in the ring was occupied by a body Marik was sure meant serious psycho business. Beside them, he felt eclipsed as a mere amateur. How would he ever vie for Bakura's attention this way? Bakura was a _therapist,_ and as it stood, everyone else in the room needed therapy a lot more than he did.

He pouted, trying the circle with his eyes in hopes of at least identifying Jackal. Was Jackal even with them? The psycho fringe guy from breakfast wasn't, and his description of Jackal had been stunted at 'he's gonna kill you,' which really didn't serve its purpose among a whole host of persons who appeared competent of that.

Bakura commenced the therapy conversation with a placid smile. "Jerry, sit on the chair. That's right, on it. Thank you Jerry. Alright, before we begin, we've got a new face. So stand please Marik."

This was a bad joke, it just had to be. What was with the kindergarten rehearsal?

But weighted down under the bambi eyes of the boy with white hair, Marik meandered to his feet and drew unwanted attention to himself with the words, "Hi, what's up."

"Guy's wearing a pink shirt." Someone unidentified noted blankly.

"Quiet, Shawn. It's a girl." Someone else quipped, supposedly in his defense.

Marik smiled sarcastically. "Nice meeting you all."

'_Ignorant fools.' _Marik's dark side murmured. '_Bet you want to just…murder, don't you Marik…'_

"Stop that," Marik snapped to nobody, jolting as he realized the implications of the action. Now he really looked psychopathic, just great.

"Hang on," Bakura stopped him midway down into his chair again. "Tell us about yourself."

What was there to tell? He was a bronze skinned Egyptian in a foreign land where therapy institutions existed conversing with himself. He assumed his portrayal had carried any hints of his character well for him. "I'm Egyptian and I don't belong here. And I'm not happy about it."

Bakura smiled approvingly for some reason, suppressing giggling. "And um, what brought you here Marik? If, you wish to share it with me?" There was a stretched moment between them. "The group." Bakura corrected rapidly. "Share it with the group, I mean."

Marik couldn't deny him something he'd asked for, in whatever duplicity, so directly. He swallowed. "I…"

'_What a fool! You'll take my element of surprise away from us, what're you doing!' _His dark side warred with him. That only pushed him off the edge faster.

"I hear voices in my head." And the silence fell like cold water over them all. "I…I think I have a dark side."

'_Hahaha! No one will believe that! Never mind, you've taking nothing but your dignity!' _His dark side raved unsupportively.

Marik stared at Bakura, who was quiet for a moment. "Thank you." Bakura said at last.

'_Hear that Bakura?' _Whispered Yami Bakura, at this most inconvenient time. '_Hear that? It's the spirit! He's talking about the spirit! Have I got a diagnosis for him…'_

"Ah-hm." Bakura cleared his throat loudly for a moment. "Anyway, I really think we should get on with therapy now." Something had made him notably more irritant, and the signs had been injected into his voice for all to see. "Jerry…sit. Down."

Whoever Jerry was, he sat down very willingly. Bakura realized his harsh tone and corrected himself. "Um, thank you Jerry. Alright, let's start with you then, Jerry …How…How do you feel?" There was probably more to the sentence, but it took a fundamentally sound person to acknowledge it. Marik noticed of course.

As soon as Jerry started rambling about the solar system, Bakura clutched his head a little desperately. Marik was being driven insane by the driveling speech of Jerry's feelings too, but he was detecting that for Bakura, there was more to it than that. Bakura had that look in his eyes again. Marik shifted uncomfortably, as Jerry's drone moved into background noise washed out by his fears.

When Bakura looked up, his smile was playful. But it wasn't sweet anymore.

"That's great," Bakura interrupted Jerry to his surprise, quickly snubbing him further with the words, "Do me a favor and shut up about it."

He got to his feet, to which one of the psychos in the ring shrieked, "It's back!" And bolted free of the room. Bakura sighed as though he couldn't care less. "Right. Well, class dismissed. Except for you." And his eyes found Marik's. "You need therapy."

Marik did not like the sound of those words. For the first time all day, Jackal's identity made it clear which face he fit with the arrogant exclamation of, "Hey Bakura, babe, how come he gets to stay with you? Love me too."

This Bakura was not the Bakura Marik would have tried that with. Bakura turned on Jackal until they were close enough to touch noses. For a second, Jackal only appeared enticed. Then came the news flash.

"My love, is not something you want, you mortal." Jackal hit the floor so hard Marik wasn't sure who'd done it; the gods, most probably. Couldn't have been Bakura; he was too small to be quick enough for that.

His eyes stung Marik's next and made his chest felt empty. No beat, no breath, no signs of life.

"You, on the other hand," He said provocatively, kicking the door behind him closed long after the last psycho had slipped away in the confusion. "Are definitely going to want my love."

Marik felt the force of him delivered within inches of violence. Bakura's hands reined his head in closer with the wisps of Marik's hair that got away flailing out between his fingers. His mouth came down on Marik's knowingly, comfortably; someone practiced in this forceful sort of affection. It made his head spin; he caught his thoughts for a moment, and then they were gone again, afraid of returning.

Bakura locked them in place as though he'd never break free, as though he had no use for oxygen. When he parted them, Marik's lungs were raw and his gasp was painful. Devoid of air, his mind had sunken away from him. Filled with it, all it did was excite him in an inexplicable mixture of fight, flight and lust.

Bakura's face was contemplating, and he licked his lips carefully. "You're all alone in this city, aren't you?" He posed the question rhetorically. A new smile set on his face. "Interesting."

"You're…Bakura?" Marik managed, still trembling for every reason your love interest forcefully kissing you could spur. "Aren't you?"

"Sometimes." Bakura shrugged nonchalantly, reveling in his associate's ignorance. "Other times, I'm me. But that's not really so bad, is it Marik?" He asked, leaning forward to nuzzle his mouth with the promise of a kiss.

"No," Marik let slip, bound by the attraction. "Not really. Kiss me."

Whoever it was, they relented. The kiss lasted for less than a moment's satisfaction before Bakura disengaged. "You will wait a moment, won't you?"

"Sure," Marik said whatever he wanted to hear, pushing for another kiss regardless. Bakura slipped away before he could find his way to one.

On the floor beneath Marik, where gravity actually held sway, Jackal was rousing blurrily. He watched Bakura's peaceful white lab coat flit out of the doors and escape them both decisively. "What happened?"

"I have no fucking clue." Marik assured them both, as the question echoed in his head.

But it had happened.


End file.
